


New Trends

by Cavet



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: dwsecretsanta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5457905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cavet/pseuds/Cavet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mindless little piece about the Doctor getting in trouble and Clara getting him out, as usual. For the-great-space-virgin for the dwsecretsanta 2015!</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Trends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiveainley_ohmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveainley_ohmy/gifts).



> Wow, I'm sorry this took so long. I'm also sorry that I couldn't do something with Classic Who, because I can tell you're a really big fan of it. I'm also not really used to writing Clara, but hey, it's Christmas! I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful holiday. 
> 
> From, Creepyclint

Clara barely even looked up at the sound of the TARDIS materializing, a small smile playing across her lips. She finished drying the dish she was holding and threw the towel over her shoulder, watching for the Doctor to appear outside her window. 

The doors to the TARDIS remained, closed, though, so she threw down the towel and headed out the door. Tugging on her jacket as she raced down the stairs, she could see that the doors were still closed, and smirked, expecting to enter and find him working on some new invention or playing some ridiculously complicated guitar solo. 

When she entered, however, the Doctor wasn’t leaning against the console, or watching her from the balcony. A quick glance downstairs revealed he wasn’t there either. She frowned as she crossed her arms. 

“Doctor?” She called. “Hello?” 

Her voice echoed around the ship, bouncing down the halls, but there was no response to it. 

“Are you hiding or something? If you’ve gone and dyed your hair a bright color, I promise I’ll only laugh for a few minutes. Come on, let’s see it!” 

She laughed lightly, but there was still no answer. Her smile faded and she turned around, placing her hands on the console. The TARDIS hummed under her fingerprints, alive as ever, but there was still no Doctor. 

“Alright, where have you gone, old man?” She mused aloud. The ship looked the same as it always did. Spinning gallifreyan circles whirled around on the screens, and all the books were lined up as she had left them on the shelf. His coat was hooked over one of the many levers on the console, and she rubbed her hands over the material distractedly as she thought. 

“No Doctor, no message, just a TARDIS. Yeah, that’s a bit odd. He must have gone somewhere, and the TARDIS left him there then?” She paused, staring around her. “Now, why would that happen? Unless…” 

“Unless he couldn’t get back to the TARDIS. Oh, Doctor, what have you gotten yourself into now?” The TARDIS seemed to hum louder in response, and the lights flickered briefly. She looked up, eyes wide, waiting for something to happen, but the TARDIS calmed. She looked around and hummed thoughtfully to herself. 

“Okay, so now all I need to do is figure out how read an ancient language that only one person knows how to read, and that one person is who I’m trying to find. Great!” She glared at the screen, willing for it to somehow change to english so she could figure out what she was doing, for god’s sake. 

She groaned in frustration and thumped her fist against the console. Immediately, the TARDIS darkened and groaned, and she found herself scrambling to get a grip on the console as everything tilted. 

 

When the TARDIS came to a stop, she slowly released her death grip on the console. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she stepped around it to see the screen. 

“Alright then, where have you gone?” She muttered, eyes tracing the rotating gallifreyan figures on the screen. They remained there for a brief moment, then flickered and changed. 

It appeared to just be a long hallway on the screen, cement floors and walls, shiny metal doors lining them. There was nothing she could see that would help her figure out where the TARDIS had taken her, and, where hopefully the doctor was as well. 

She bit her lip as she studied the scene outside the TARDIS. 

“Earth, then?” 

The TARDIS lights dimmed, and she nodded. 

“Gotcha, not earth. Some alien planet, then, which probably means some aliens that hate the Doctor. Well, he is an alien too, I suppose.” 

Speaking quietly to herself, she eased open the door and peered outside. It appeared just like the TARDIS had shown her, a long empty hallway lined with doors. She frowned and stepped out, keeping a hand on the inside of the TARDIS, just in case. 

When two steps away from the TARDIS brought no armies of aliens bearing down on her from all directions, she cautiously removed her hand from the doorway and winced as it swung shut, the noise echoing around the hall. When nothing came out again, she breathed a sigh of relief and started walking down the hall, trailing her hand along the doors as she passed them. 

At the end of the hall it split off to the left and right, both of which looked exactly the same as the hallway she had just come from. 

“Okay, I’m the Doctor. I’ve just landed on this weird, alien planet and walk out to see this hall. Which way do I go, left or right?” 

She paused, staring at the wall in front of her as if expecting it to give her an answer. Then she shrugged. 

“Left it is, then.” 

At the end of this hall, instead of more branching halls, there was a single door, with a small, rounded window in the center of it. Standing on her toes, she could just barely see through it. 

“Oh, no, no, no,” she whispered as soon as she saw what was inside. “God, Doctor, what have you gotten yourself into now?” 

There was the Doctor, standing in the middle of the room, clearly talking a million miles an hour to the cybermen surrounding him. He appeared to be addressing one in particular, who had broken away from all the others and was standing directly in front of him. As Clara watched, the Doctor gestured frantically to his head and then spun in a circle. She couldn’t hear what the cyberman said in return, but it wasn’t good, judging from the way the Doctor frowned. He said something back, looking deadly serious. 

“Oh, God, what are you doing?” Clara backed away from the door, eyes wide. She spun around and pressed her hands against one of the doors, trying to steady herself so that she could think, but ended up jumping away as the door opened with a hiss. 

Clara gasped and backed away as the cyberman who had been behind the door stared at her. She brushed her hands against the wall behind her, leaning against it as she watched the cyberman.

When it didn’t move, however, she slowly took a step forward. Then another, and another. 

Hand shaking ever so slightly, she reached out and knocked on it's chest, making a hollow clanging cell. She nearly laughed. 

Empty. It was a completely hollow suit. 

Clara reached up and tugged off the head, turning it over in her hands and then held it up in front of her head. 

It would have to do. 

 

_________________

 

She moved stiffly, awkwardly, in the suit, but hopefully enough like a cyberman to get away undetected. None of the other cybermen reacted to her when she entered the room or when she joined the crown of them surrounding the Doctor, so she chose to take it as a good sign. 

“Now, c’mon, you really can’t think that is going to work do you? I mean, really? It’s completely ludicrous, would never work in a million years.” The Doctor was smiling nervously at the cyberman in front of him. Clara noticed that his sonic sunglasses were lying on the floor near the feet of one of the cybermen, in pieces. 

“Incorrect. It has been done before. The merging of two species has proven to be a successful method of survival.” 

“Well, sure!” The Doctor spread his hands wide. “Two species, sure, that’ll work just fine. But see here, you’re not really a species, are you? You’re just a bunch of rust buckets? Combine my intelligence with the mind of a cyberman, please. It’ll never work.” 

Clara bit her lip.   
“Our tests have proven positive. We have chosen a cyberman who is compatible with your brain tissue. They will merge together and create the ultimate cyberman.” 

“Oh, yeah, and what happens to me once you take some of my brain tissue, huh? What then?” 

“You become irrelevant.” 

Clara’s hands clenched at her sides, a difficult feat considering how bulky and hard to control they were trapped in metal. She shuffled forward through the crowd, pushing past other cybermen. When she reached the front, the Doctor turned and glared at her.

“Oh, fantastic, another one of you lot! What do you want now, engine-head?” 

Clara hesitated. She had found the Doctor, made it into the room undetected, and gotten his attention, but she hadn’t planned beyond that. If she spoke, everyone in the room would immediately know she wasn’t a real cybermen. She was running out of time, though. The cyberman facing the doctor shifted and walked toward her. 

“What have you come for?” It asked. Clara bit her lip and almost closed her eyes, and then slowly raised her hand to point at the doctor. The cyberman’s head turned to look, then turned back to Clara. Then it spun around to face the Doctor. 

“The time has come. You will be escorted to the transplant room. Do not attempt to resist.” 

The Doctor stepped towards Clara. “Oh, no, wouldn’t dream of it,” he sneered. “Come on then, tinfoil, escort me to your transplant room, chop chop, let’s go!” 

Clara turned around awkwardly and walked towards the door, unable to even hear if the doctor was following over the clanking and machinery noises of her own suit. The door slid open as she approached it, and she stepped to the side to let the doctor pass in front of her. SHe followed him out in the hall, and the door closed behind them. 

“Doctor, it’s me!” She gasped immediately. He stopped suddenly and turned around. 

“Clara?” 

“Doctor! Keep walking, they can still see us through the window. The TARDIS is down the hallway to the right.” 

Eyes wide, he turned and kept walking. Once they had rounded the corner, they broke into a run. At least, the Doctor ran and Clara stumbled after him. He snapped his fingers and the doors to the TARDIS opened. 

Clara slammed the door behind her as the doctor flew up to the console, fingers dancing across it like a musician until he finally pulled the lever and the TARDIS took off. Clara pulled off the cyberman head and grinned. 

“Good look for me, yeah?” 

The Doctor smirked and closed his eyes, leaning against the console. “That better not become a new trend, Clara Oswald.”


End file.
